Council goes slow on FOGO
26 Nov 2021
Waste management is a TIER 1 responsibility of Local Government. Always has been, always will be.
The revolutionary treatment of household organic household waste, FOGO, is the big game changer that will turn smelly overflowing tips into a ‘thing of the past’.
The Mornington Peninsula Shire (MPS) has been dragging it’s heels.
Late July this year, MPS finally put its toe in the water and began a FOGO (Food Organics Green Organics) service, gingerly diverting a small amount of organics away from landfill.
MPS management, on 1st July this year, reported to the Shire’s Council Meeting that FOGO would not be offered universally across the Peninsula until 2023. Councillors present at that meeting didn’t seem to bat an eyelid.
The Shire’s disingenuous attitude towards FOGO is baffling despite continuing to declare itself as ‘a leader in best practice waste management’.
In its introductory FOGO roll-out, MPS management has asked ratepayers to fork out an extra $135 per annum to have their food waste collected in the ‘opt-in’ garden waste bin.
Special purpose bench caddies and liners are being provided to collect meat and dairy waste in the kitchen. Filled bags of food waste are then placed in the green waste bin ready for the fortnightly kerbside service.
The FOGO service is only available to urban areas on the Peninsula. Rural households miss out for now.
The ‘opt-in’ green bin charge of $135 is in addition to the annual waste charge of $338, the levy you see on your rate notice.
And while MPS takes its time being "‘FOGO Fully-Operational’, the government landfill levy per tonne continues to rise, a cost the ratepayer will inevitably be asked to absorb. The Shire is currently paying the State in excess of $2m each year in landfill tax.
Fast forward to this month, November 2021, MPS is only now informing the public through newsprint outlets that it has finally joined the south eastern collective, a group of south eastern councils and shires, some of which have been operating FOGO as early as early 2017.
Noticeably, other councils in the south eastern region have been steaming ahead sending thousands of tonnes of food organics and green organics to processing plants to be turned into farming fertiliser. The end result is a significant reduction of harmful methane emissions from local tips.
Fully operational commercial processing facilities in Dandenong South form part of the Advanced Waste Technology (AWT) strategy that has been endorsed by the Victorian Governments Metropolitan Waste Resource and Recovery Group (MWRRG).
The City of Frankston Council has been diverting its organic waste away from landfill since 2019. The City of Cardinia and the Bass Coast Shire to the east began their FOGO collections in 2017.
The City of Casey rolled out it’s FOGO universally in 2020. It is now planning to introduce a fourth bin for glass only.
Currently, Mornington Peninsula Shire still sends 33,000 tonnes of waste annually to landfill, 52% of which is organic waste.
In the MPS ‘Beyond Zero Waste 2030’ Strategy, the FOGO time frame states:
Jan-May ‘21 Engage community on FOGO services and education resources
Jun ‘21 Distribute kitchen caddies with liners
Jul ‘21 Allow all residents with Green Waste bins to add organic food
Jul ‘23 Universal rollout pending contamination
Fully aware of the challenges councils faced, MWRRG launched a set of guidelines to assist waste managers get their FOGO service underway as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Above: The MWRRG is now asking councils to start preparing for a four bin system
So how do the contractural arrangements work between councils who supply the organic waste and the AWT processing plants?
To enable the commercial viability of AWT facilities, a required volume of organics can only be met if councils enter into a joint collective framework known as a ‘Special Purpose Vehicle’ SPV. There are currently 16 participating councils in the south east region of Melbourne.
Sacyr Industries began operating their new waste treatment in Melbourne’s south east in May 2019. The company claims to service a population of 1.2 million people in the recycling of food and green garden waste, with a maximum capacity of 120,000 tonnes per year.
CleanAway, also in Dandenong South, opened its state-of-the-art organics processing facility in 2018 and can process 1000,000 tonnes of FOGO per annum.
Veoila Environmental Services is a third organics operator in Dandenong South.
Although commendable that MPS has finally commenced a FOGo service, it is hard to find any information on its website about where the organic waste is being sent for processing, or details of the current volume of FOGO waste being collected.
Clearly MPS still has a long way to go before it catches up with neighbouring councils in the south east. And the longer MPS takes to fully implement FOGO, the more tax the Shire (and ratepayers through the uncapped waste charge) pays each year to the State’s coffers for each tonne of waste that goes to landfill.
Above: The 3 bin system many councils are already adopting in Victoria